Tag Archives: Honduras

Miami Herald: Exclusive: Hundreds at Alligator Alcatraz have no criminal charges, Miami Herald learns

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Hundreds of immigrants with no criminal charges in the United States are being held at Alligator Alcatraz, a detention facility state and federal officials have characterized as a place where “vicious” and “deranged psychopaths” are sent before they get deported, records obtained by the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times show.

Mixed among the detainees accused and convicted of crimes are more than 250 people who are listed as having only immigration violations but no criminal convictions or pending charges in the United States. The data is based on a list of more than 700 people who are either being held under tents and in chain link cells at Florida’s pop-up detention center in the Everglades or appear slated for transfer there.

A third of the detainees have criminal convictions. Their charges range from attempted murder to illegal re-entry to traffic violations. Hundreds of others only have pending charges. The records do not disclose the nature of the alleged offenses, and reporters have not independently examined each individual’s case.

The information — subject to change as the population of the facility fluctuates — suggests that scores of migrants without criminal records have been targeted in the state and federal dragnet to catch and deport immigrants living illegally in Florida.

Nationally, nearly half of detainees in ICE custody as of late June were being held for immigration violations and did not have a criminal conviction or charge, according to data from Syracuse University. Polls have shown that American voters support the deportation of criminals but are less supportive of the arrest and detention of otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants. South Florida’s congressional representatives have called on the Trump administration to be more compassionate in its efforts to round up and deport immigrants with status issues.

“That place is supposedly for the worst criminals in the U.S.,” said Walter Jara, the nephew of a 56-year-old Nicaraguan man taken to the facility following a traffic stop in Palm Beach County. The list obtained by the Herald/Times states that his uncle, Denis Alcides Solis Morales, has immigration violations and makes no mention of convictions or pending criminal charges. Jara said his uncle arrived here legally in 2023 under a humanitarian parole program, and has a pending asylum case.

Reporters sent the list to officials at the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In a statement, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the absence of a criminal charge in the United States doesn’t mean migrants detained at the site have clean hands.

“Many of the individuals that are counted as ‘non-criminals’ are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters and more; they just don’t have a rap sheet in the U.S.,” McLaughlin told the Herald/Times. “Further, every single one of these individuals committed a crime when they came into this country illegally. It is not an accurate description to say they are ‘non-criminals.’”

McLaughlin said the Trump administration is “putting the American people first by removing illegal aliens who pose a threat to our communities” and said “70% of ICE arrests have been of criminal illegal aliens with convictions or pending charges.”

She added that the state of Florida oversees the facility, not ICE, an argument echoed in court by Thomas P. Giles, a top official involved in enforcement and removal operations.

“The ultimate decision of who to detain” at Alligator Alcatraz “belongs to Florida,” he wrote as part of the federal government’s response to a lawsuit challenging the detention facility on environmental grounds.

A spokesperson for ICE referred reporters to Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, which oversees the detention facility. The Florida agency did not respond to a request for comment.

The records offer a glimpse into who is being sent to Alligator Alcatraz. The network of trailers and tents, built on an airstrip off of U.S. Highway 41, has been operating for a little more than a week. It is already housing about 750 immigrant detainees, a figure that state officials shared with Democratic state Sen. Carlos Guillermo-Smith, one of several Florida lawmakers who toured the site on Saturday afternoon.

The records obtained by the Herald/Times show detainees are from roughly 40 countries around the world. Immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala and Cuba made up about half the list. Ages range from 18 to 73. One is listed as being from the United States. Reporters were unable to locate his family or attorney.

Lawmakers who visited the facility Saturday said they saw detainees wearing wristbands, which state officials explained were meant to classify the severity of their civil or criminal violations. The colors included yellow, orange and red — with yellow being less severe infractions and red meaning more severe offenses, said state Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando.

When the detention facility opened on July 1, President Donald Trump visited the site and said it would soon house “some of the most vicious people on the planet.” He and Gov. Ron DeSantis have said the detention center is creating more space to house undocumented immigrants who otherwise would have to be released due to a lack of beds.

The state has refused to make public a roster of detainees at Alligator Alcatraz, instead offering selective information about who is being detained there. On Friday, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office released the names of six men convicted of crimes to Fox News, and later to the Herald/Times upon request. The charges against the men — all included on the list obtained by the Herald/Times — ranged from murder to burglary.

“This group of murderers, rapists, and gang members are just a small sample of the deranged psychopaths that Florida is helping President Trump and his administration remove from our country,” Uthmeier’s spokesman, Jeremy Redfern, said in a statement.

One of those men is Jose Fortin, a 46-year-old from Honduras who was arrested in 2017 on attempted murder charges. Records show Fortin was deported to his home country in August 2019. A month later, he re-entered the country illegally. Border patrol agents picked him up in Texas.

Another man identified as a detainee by Uthmeier’s office, Luis Donaldo Corado, was convicted of burglary and petty theft after he was accused of being a “peeping tom” — watching a woman through her apartment window in Coral Gables. And Eddy Lopez Jemot, a 57-year-old Cuban man, was accused of killing a woman and setting her house on fire in Key Largo in 2017. The state dropped homicide charges against him in a plea deal this year and convicted him of arson.

But other detainees left off the attorney general’s list face lesser charges — such as traffic violations, according to attorneys and family members. An attorney told the Herald/Times her client was detained by federal immigration agents after a routine-check in at an ICE field office. Some are asylum seekers.

Solís Morales, the 56-year-old Nicaraguan, ended up in Alligator Alcatraz after he was unexpectedly detained on his way to a construction job in Palm Beach County on July 1, according to Jara, his nephew. He was a passenger in a Ford F-150 when the driver was pulled over by the Florida Highway Patrol for an unsecured load, Jara told the Herald/Times on Saturday.

Solís Morales arrived in the United States from Nicaragua in 2023 under humanitarian parole and has a pending asylum case, Jara said.

Miami immigration attorney Regina de Moraes said she’s representing a 37-year-old Brazilian man being held at Alligator Alcatraz who entered the United States lawfully on a tourist visa in 2022 and then applied for asylum, which is pending.

She said the man, who has a five-year work permit and owns a solar panel business in the Orlando area, was arrested on a DUI charge in 2024. While he was attending a probation hearing on June 3, he was detained by the Orange County Sheriff’s office, which is participating in a federal immigration program known as 287(g). He was transferred from there to Alligator Alcatraz on Thursday, according to information provided to her by the man’s sister.

De Moraes, a seasoned immigration lawyer, said she doesn’t understand why the Brazilian man was transferred to the state-operated detention facility in the Everglades. She asked the Herald/Times not to identify her client.

“He’s not subject to mandatory detention and he’s not subject to removal because he has a pending asylum application,” de Moraes told the Herald/Times. “He has one DUI and he’s not a threat to others. This is ridiculous. This is a waste of time and money. … He’s not the kind of person they should be picking up.”

“They should be picking up people with sexual battery or armed robbery records,” de Moraes said.

Exclusive: Hundreds at Alligator Alcatraz have no criminal charges, Miami Herald learns
Descriptions of the Everglades detention center as a place for violent criminals tell only part of the story.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article310541810.html

Raw Story: ‘Cried every night’: 6-year-old cancer patient detained nearly 2 months by ICE

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A 6-year-old Honduran boy battling leukemia was detained — along with his family — by President Donald Trump’s ICE agents despite following every immigration rule, the boy’s lawyer told Salon.

The family’s nightmare began when they were seized by plainclothes ICE agents after a court hearing in May.

“The boy and his 9-year-old sister cried every night in detention,” attorney Elora Mukherjee told Salon. The government pursued expedited removal while the cancer patient suffered in a Texas detention facility that Biden had shuttered but Trump reopened.

“The Trump administration’s policy of detaining people at courthouses who are doing everything right, who are entirely law-abiding, who are trying to fulfill all the requirements that the U.S. government asks of them — it violates our Constitution, it violates our federal laws,” Mukherjee said. “It also violates our sense of morality.”

The family had fled Honduras after receiving death threats, applied for asylum through proper channels, and waited for permission to enter using a CBP appointment. They never crossed the border illegally, the lawyer said.

“So this particular family did everything right,” Mukherjee emphasized.

During their month-long detention at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the boy experienced leukemia symptoms including easy bruising and bone pain. He missed a crucial June 5 cancer appointment. His sister barely ate.

Jeff Migliozzi from Freedom for Immigrants blasted Trump’s “aggressivequota of 3,000 daily immigration arrests — a policy pushed by hardliners in the White House like known white nationalist Stephen Miller — is terrorizing communities.”

The administration’s “bait-and-switch tactics” increasingly target people at scheduled check-ins and courthouses, Migliozzi said. “Here you have people doing everything they can to follow the instructions given to them, and then the rug is pulled out from under them.”

The family was released July 2 after public pressure and media coverage, but only after enduring traumatic detention that Mukherjee said “clearly violates both the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment.”

“High-level officials in the Department of Homeland Security constantly say that we are targeting the ‘worst of the worst,'” Mukherjee noted. “These are the people who are doing everything right.”

‘Cried every night’: 6-year-old cancer patient detained nearly 2 months by ICE

https://www.rawstory.com/immigration-kids

Reuters: ICE may deport migrants to countries other than their own with just six hours notice, memo says

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U.S. immigration officials may deport migrants to countries other than their home nations with as little as six hours’ notice, a top Trump administration official said in a memo, offering a preview of how deportations could ramp up.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will generally wait at least 24 hours to deport someone after informing them of their removal to a so-called “third country,” according to a memo dated Wednesday, July 9, from the agency’s acting director, Todd Lyons.

ICE could remove them, however, to a so-called “third country” with as little as six hours’ notice “in exigent circumstances,” said the memo, as long as the person has been provided the chance to speak with an attorney.

The memo states that migrants could be sent to nations that have pledged not to persecute or torture them “without the need for further procedures.”

The new ICE policy suggests President Donald Trump’s administration could move quickly to send migrants to countries around the world.

The Supreme Court in June lifted a lower court’s order limiting such deportations without a screening for fear of persecution in the destination country.

Following the high court’s ruling and a subsequent order from the justices, the Trump administration sent eight migrants from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Sudan and Vietnam to South Sudan.

The administration last week pressed officials from five African nations – Liberia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Gabon – to accept deportees from elsewhere, Reuters reported.

The Washington Post first reported the new ICE memo.

The administration argues the third country deportations help swiftly remove migrants who should not be in the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.

Advocates have criticized the deportations as dangerous and cruel, since people could be sent to countries where they could face violence, have no ties and do not speak the language.

Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for a group of migrants pursuing a class action lawsuit against such rapid third-county deportations at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said the policy “falls far short of providing the statutory and due process protections that the law requires.”

Third-country deportations have been done in the past, but the tool could be more frequently used as Trump tries to ramp up deportations to record levels.

During Trump’s 2017-2021 presidency, his administration deported small numbers of people from El Salvador and Honduras to Guatemala.

Former President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration struck a deal with Mexico to take thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, since it was difficult to deport migrants to those nations.

The new ICE memo was filed as evidence in a lawsuit over the wrongful deportation of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.

ICE may deport migrants to countries other than their own with just six hours notice, memo says

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ice-may-deport-migrants-countries-other-than-their-own-with-just-six-hours-2025-07-13

Salon: “Cried every night”: ICE detains child with leukemia

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As part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, a young cancer patient and his family were detained, despite adhering to every rule of the immigration process. The boy’s lawyer says the family’s experience puts to lie the Trump administration’s claims about deportation.

In May, a 6-year-old boy from Honduras who had been suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia since the age of three was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, alongside his family, immediately after a court hearing on May 29. Their case was dismissed at the hearing, per instructions from Trump, who directed judges to dismiss the cases of immigrants who have been in the country for less than two years so that ICE can move to deport them. On July 2, the family was released after significant pressure from the public and media coverage of the detention.

Elora Mukherjee, an attorney who represented the boy and his family, told Salon that the boy and his 9-year-old sister “cried every night in detention.” At the same time, the government pursued an expedited removal, a process by which the government deports someone without a hearing before a judge.

“The Trump administration’s policy of detaining people at courthouses who are doing everything right, who are entirely law-abiding, who are trying to fulfill all the requirements that the US government asks of them — it violates our Constitution, it violates our federal laws. It also violates our sense of morality. Why are we targeting hundreds, if not thousands, of people, including children, who are doing everything right?” Mukherjee said.

Jeff Migliozzi, the communications director for Freedom for Immigrants, an immigrant advocacy organziation, told Salon that “The Trump administration’s aggressive quota of 3,000 daily immigration arrests — a policy pushed by hardliners in the White House like known white nationalist Stephen Miller — is terrorizing communities.”

“The administration is directing resources and personnel from every possible corner of the government to conduct a multi-agency detention and deportation campaign at unprecedented scale,” Migliozzi said.. “This destructive agenda touches every corner of American life and civil society, as more and more people, including those who have been in the US for decades and are pillars of their community, are suddenly snatched by masked agents and taken away to remote detention sites. Street operations are resource-intensive, so the administration has increasingly turned to bait-and-switch tactics to drive up the numbers. ICE is now relying more on arrests at scheduled check-ins and at courthouses. These practices underscore not only the cruelty of this administration’s policy, but of the outdated and unfair immigration system. Here you have people doing everything they can to follow the instructions given to them, and then the rug is pulled out from under them. The result is separated families and shattered lives.”

Despite living in Los Angeles, the family was kept at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas for over a month. The center had been closed under the Biden Administration, but has been reopened as part of Trump’s push to deport as many immigrants as possible.

In detention, Mukherjee said that the boy suffered from easy bruising and bone pain, both symptoms of leukemia, and missed a June 5 medical appointment related to his cancer treatment. His sister barely ate in detention, she added.

In response to a request for comment from Salon, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, “ICE does not consider a six-year-old child a ‘flight risk’ or a ‘criminal’—that is a disgusting accusation and devoid of any reality. ”

McLaughlin claimed that the family entered the United States illegally and that “Any implications that ICE would deny a child proper medical care are FALSE,” adding that “ICE ALWAYS prioritizes the health, safety, and well-being of all detainees in its care.”

Bullshit!!! It’s all about cruelty and terror!

“On May 29, 2025, an immigration judge in California dismissed the family’s immigration case and they were served orders of expedited removal,” McLaughlin said. “ICE took custody of the family following the judge’s decision and pending further proceedings. The child arrived at the Dilley facility on May 30, 2025, and was seen by a nurse during intake. Fortunately, the child has not undergone chemotherapy in over a year and was seen regularly by medical personnel while at the Dilley facility. During this time, the family chose to appeal their case. On July 2, the child, his mother, and his sister were released on parole.”

The Dilley detention facility has been subject to renewed scrutiny as the Trump administration has sought to terminate the Flores Settlement, a 1990s-era policy stemming from the Supreme Court case Reno v. Flores, which set basic standards for the treatment of children in detention and required the government to release children from detention without unnecessary delay.

Recent testimony about conditions at ICE facilities has raised concerns over violations of the agreement, with one girl describing situations in which adults and children were fighting over an insufficient amount of water at one facility.

“We don’t get enough water. They put out a little case of water, and everyone has to run for it,” the girl said in testimony related to conditions in immigrant detention. “An adult here even pushed my little sister out of the way to get to the water first.”

Mukherjee said that the family had followed all the rules in coming to the United States, but were still arrested by ICE. And, despite claims from the Trump administration that they’re focusing their efforts on criminals, neither the small children nor the mother had been accused of a crime. The family arrived in the United States in October, applying for asylum after they faced death threats in Honduras. The names and details of the family have not been released due to the threats they face in Honduras.

“So this particular family did everything right. They came to the U.S. border after fleeing imminent and menacing death threats in their home country of Honduras. They didn’t cross the border illegally. They waited for permission to enter the United States using a CBP one appointment. At that point, DHS paroled the family into the United States, which necessarily entailed a determination that the family did not pose a danger to the community or a flight risk,” Mukherjee said. “The family did exactly what the federal government asked them to do.”

According to Mukherjee, as soon as the family stepped out of their May 29 hearing, plain clothes ICE officers detained them, a move that she said “clearly violates both the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment.”

“When Trump was campaigning for president, and since he’s become president, and high-level officials in the Department of Homeland Security constantly say that we are targeting the ‘worst of the worst,’” Mukherjee said. “These are the people who are doing everything right.”

Their release followed a suit filed by the mother of the family, demanding the family’s immediate release. Mukherjee told Salon that the family intends to continue its legal battle to remain in the United States.

“Cried every night”: ICE detains child with leukemia – Salon.com
The Trump administration is going after easy targets, including sick children, to meet its deportation quotas

https://www.salon.com/2025/07/14/cried-every-night-ice-traumatizes-a-child-with-leukemia

USA Today: Honduran family, 6-year-old with leukemia released from ICE detention

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A 6-year-old Honduran boy with leukemia who had been held in immigration detention with his family since May was released July 2.

The boy, his mother and 9-year-old sister entered the country legally last fall seeking asylum. Federal agents arrested them as they left an immigration hearing in Los Angeles on May 29. They were held in a privately run family detention center in South Texas. Their release was made public July 3, but their future remains unclear.

They never should have been detained in the first place — hope they sue!

Honduran family, 6-year-old with leukemia released from ICE detention
The family is among a growing number of people detained despite entering the country legally during the Biden administration.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/07/03/boy-leukemia-detention-released-lawyers/84465806007

Associated Press: Family sues over US detention in what may be first challenge to courthouse arrests involving kids

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A mother and her two young kids are fighting for their release from a Texas immigration detention center in what is believed to be the first lawsuit involving children challenging the Trump administration’s policy on immigrant arrests at courthouses.

  • A mother, her 6-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter are fighting for their release from a Texas immigration detention center
  • The lawsuit says the family’s arrests after fleeing Honduras due to death threats and entering the U.S. legally using the CBP One app violate their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights
  • Elora Mukherjee, a lawyer representing the family, said this is the first lawsuit filed on behalf of children to challenge the ICE courthouse arrest policy
  • Mukherjee said the son recently underwent chemotherapy for leukemia and his health is declining in detention. The lawyer said after their arrest at a courtroom, the family spent 11 hours at an immigrant processing center and were each only given an apple, a small packet of cookies, a juice box and water

The lawsuit filed Tuesday argues that the family’s arrests after fleeing Honduras and entering the U.S. legally using a Biden-era appointment app violate their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizure and their Fifth Amendment right to due process.

“The big picture is that the executive branch cannot seize people, arrest people, detain people indefinitely when they are complying with exactly what our government has required of them,” said Columbia Law School professor Elora Mukherjee, one of the lawyers representing the family.

…

Starting in May, the country has seen large-scale arrests in which asylum-seekers appearing at routine court hearings have been arrested outside courtrooms as part of the White House’s mass deportation effort. In many cases, a judge will grant a government lawyer’s request to dismiss deportation proceedings and then U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers will arrest the person and place them on “expedited removal,” a fast track to deportation.

Mukherjee said this is the first lawsuit filed on behalf of children to challenge the ICE courthouse arrest policy. The government has until July 1 to respond.

Family fights for release from Texas immigration detention center
A mother and her two young kids are fighting for their release from a Texas immigration detention center.

https://baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2025/06/27/family-sues-us-detention-courthouse-arrests

LA Times: ICE seizes 6-year-old with cancer outside L.A. court. His mom is fighting for his release

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  • A Honduran woman filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of her and her family’s detention at a Texas facility.
  • She is also asking for a preliminary injunction that would prevent her family’s immediate deportation to Honduras as her 6-year-old son battles acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

A Central American asylum applicant arrested outside an L.A. immigration court is suing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security and the Trump administration for her immediate release and that of her two children, including her 6-year-old son stricken with cancer.

The Honduran woman, not named in court documents, filed a petition for writs of habeas corpus, challenging the legality of her and her family’s detention at a Texas facility. She is also asking for a preliminary injunction that would prevent her family’s immediate deportation to Honduras, as her children cry and pray nightly to be released from a Texas holding facility, according to court documents.

She and her two children, including a 9-year-old daughter, are facing two removal proceedings concurrently: a previous removal proceeding involving their asylum request and this recent expedited removal process.

The woman claims the government violated many of their rights, including the due process clause of the 5th Amendment.

Her attorneys noted that DHS determined she was not a flight risk when she was paroled and that her detention was unjustified.

The woman’s lawyers also argued that she was not given an opportunity to contest her family’s detention in front of a neutral adjudicator, and that the family’s 4th Amendment right to not be unlawfully arrested was violated.

ICE seizes 6-year-old with cancer outside L.A. court. His mom is fighting for his release
A Honduran woman is fighting to prevent her family’s immediate deportation to Honduras as her 6-year-old son battles acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-06-26/mother-of-6-year-old-l-a-boy-battling-leukemia-files-lawsuit-to-stop-immediate-deportation

Huffington Post: 6-Year-Old With Leukemia In Immigration Detention After Family’s Arrest At Courthouse: Lawsuit

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Attorneys for the boy, his mother and 9-year-old sister said they are seeking asylum and were summarily arrested despite appearing for their scheduled immigration court hearing.

A mother and her two young children — one a 6-year-old boy with leukemia — were detained by immigration officers after going to a routine immigration court proceeding in Los Angeles. Now, the family is suing the Trump administration while being detained at a facility in Texas.

According to court documents obtained by HuffPost, the family, whose names are not included in the suit, has been in the U.S. for seven months seeking asylum from Honduras. They entered the country lawfully and were granted parole as they sought asylum. However, when they arrived at the courthouse on the day and time directed, their case was dismissed, and they were detained by people, presumably federal agents, in plainclothes. 

“There were men waiting for them in civilian clothing. The [immigration officers] detained the family for many hours, and it was a terrifying time for the two children and their mother,” Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, told Texas Public Radio.

“They were crying in fear. One of the agents at one point lifted up his shirt, which displayed the gun that he was carrying,” Mukherjee added. “The 6-year-old boy was terrified to see the gun. He urinated on himself and wet all his clothing. No one offered him a change of clothing for many hours.”

6-Year-Old With Leukemia In Immigration Detention After Family’s Arrest At Courthouse: Lawsuit
Attorneys for the boy, his mother and 9-year-old sister said they are seeking asylum and were summarily arrested despite appearing for their scheduled immigration court hearing.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/family-detained-ice-suing-trump-administration_n_685da99fe4b073fdc1d4cc76

NBC News: A teen with no criminal background was deported by ICE, leaving his community aghast

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Emerson Colindres’ soccer coach says his case is an example of how those getting taken by ICE “are your friends and neighbors … and then one day they’re just gone.”

For 19-year-old Emerson Colindres, it was supposed to be a routine check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It turned out to be a trap. He never returned home.

Colindres, who came to the United States with his family more than a decade ago to escape the violence in their native Honduras, was detained by ICE on June 4, just days after the talented student and soccer player graduated high school in Cincinnati. Colindres, whose teammates said was one of the greatest players they met on the field, dreamed of continuing his sports career and hoped to attend a university. He did not have a criminal record, according to the Butler County Sheriff’s Office.

In the span of two weeks, Colindres went from celebrating his graduation to being detained by ICE to then being deported to a country where he has not lived since he was 8 years old.

So much for the American dream — f*ck*ng ICE *ssh*l*s!

A teen with no criminal background was deported by ICE, leaving his community aghast
Emerson Colindres’ soccer coach says his case is an example of how those getting taken by ICE “are your friends and neighbors … and then one day they’re just gone.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ice-deports-teen-soccer-star-graduation-rcna212566

SFGate: From San Diego to the Bay Area, California restaurants are on edge over immigration raids

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Brandon Mejia usually spends his weekends conducting a symphony of vendors serving pupusas, huaraches and an array of tacos at his two weekly 909Tacolandia pop-up events.

…

But in the past week, that’s all come to a screeching halt. As the Trump administration ramps up immigration raids in California, some restaurants, worried about their workers or finding that customers are staying home more, are closing temporarily. Many street vendors are going into hiding, and some food festivals and farmers markets have been canceled.

Mejia called off all Tacolandia events last week. His mind raced about whether agents would come for his vendors as videos surfaced on social media of taqueros, farm workers and fruit vendors vanishing in immigration raids around LA and neighboring Ventura County.

“A lot of these vendors, their goal is to have restaurants. They want to follow the rules,” said Mejia, who was born and raised in San Bernardino in a family from Mexico City. But after conferring with vendors, they decided the risk was too high: “Some people have told me that their relatives have got taken, so I don’t want to be responsible for that.”

After a week of mass protests and more raids at farms, grocery stores and at least one swap meet, Mejia and many others remain on edge. Mejia said some small food businesses are getting desperate, trying to decide whether to risk reopening or stay closed while their own families grow hungry.

…

From San Diego to the Bay Area, California restaurants are on edge over immigration raids

https://www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/from-san-diego-to-the-bay-area-california-20385093.php